Y'know, our American society theoretically espouses the idea of a wall of separation between Church and State.  Yet the longer I live in this rapidly changing country, the more it looks like a membrane to me.  A membrane that allows religion to osmotically seep into the affairs of state, where it continues to gum up the works of an institution that is supposed to represent ALL citizens, not just the Christians.

Why am I on about this?

Roy Moore is running for governor of Alabama.  If you don't know who Roy Moore is, this will probably refresh your memory:

From 'Ten Commandments' Judge To Run For Ala. Governor (Local 6 News, Orlando, FL):

Roy Moore, who became a hero to the religious right after being ousted as Alabama's chief justice for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse, announced Monday that he is running for governor in 2006.

Moore's candidacy could set up a showdown with Gov. Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, and turn the Ten Commandments dispute into a central campaign issue in this Bible Belt state...

...Moore, 58, said that if elected, he has no plans to relocate the Ten Commandments monument from its new home at a church in Gadsden.

"But I'll tell you what I will do. I will defend the right of every citizen of this state -- including judges, coaches, teachers, city, county and state officials -- to acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty and government," he said...

Funny, everybody already has that right, and having to remove the commandments monument never denied Moore that right.  But that's okay, logic has no place in American politics, while wacko zealotry on the other hand, has apparently moved in to stay.

I bet that he wins.  Any takers?

What has become of the south?  Wasn't Thomas Jefferson a southerner?

...Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties...

Thomas Jefferson
January 1, 1802